


Five Things (x11)

by orphan_account



Category: Brokeback Mountain (2005)
Genre: Gen, M/M, five things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-04-25
Updated: 2007-04-25
Packaged: 2017-10-03 17:59:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Various five things prompts, gen and slash.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Things (x11)

**Author's Note:**

> Prompted by theswearingkind, tinheart, planetgal471, the_darkglow and anony_mouse19.

**Five Days Francine Was the One Her Daddy Noticed** (255w | 2007-05-15)

5\. Her birthday: one year old and he couldn't have been prouder. But by the time she was old enough to remember her birthdays, he was too tired to remember to be proud.

4\. She came home with a black eye, a banged-up knee, and an absolute confidence that she was right and Billy was wrong. Alma nearly flipped her top and kept her home from school for the next week, but Ennis took her aside and showed her how to avoid the black eye next time.

3\. Graduation, in her eyes, wasn't a big deal. What she _really_ wanted was to go on tour with her friend Roy's band and see the country. But she had to admit that it felt good when her daddy gave her a hug and told her she'd done good.

2\. Junior didn't like to talk about it, which she thought was stupid. Anyone with eyes could see that he hadn't been happy for the last ten years. So when his misery day came around that year, she dragged him out of the trailer without telling him where they were going, and forced him to sit through a rip-roaring rodeo with her. He didn't thank her, or even seem to enjoy himself, but he also didn't say no the next time she came around, and she took that as a good enough sign.

1\. "I met someone," she said, uncharacteristically shy. She looked at her father with a rare and quiet need for approval—maybe just understanding—shining there. "Her name is Cathy."

**Five Times Jack Laughed So Hard It Hurt** (155w | 2007-04-25)

5\. Ennis fell off his horse. Jack hadn't meant to, but once he started, he couldn't stop. It took Ennis ten years to be able to look back on that and smile, but once he did, Jack felt a burden lift from his shoulders.

4\. His mama tasted one of the pies he made as a kid. A dirt pie, to be precise. He made her a real cherry pie every year for her birthday since.

3\. The first word Bobby said was "sale." Lureen was not amused.

2\. The dress Lureen'd spent two weeks dieting to fit into ripped right down the—well. Let's just say Jack got out of the room real quick, and just in time, too, otherwise she'd have about killed him with the daggers in her eyes.

1\. His daddy was kicked in the head by his favorite horse, and died on the spot. Jack had never laughed—and cried—so hard in his life.

**Five Things Ennis and Jack Couldn't Change** (79w | 2007-04-25)

5\. Ennis loves Alma, even though he knows she stopped loving him long ago. Actually, that makes it easier.

4\. Jack, no matter how his bones creak or his belly grows, will always catch his breath at the sight of a buckin' bull.

3\. They way they part: a hug, quick, almost not there, no lingering. Never a kiss. It would be too much.

2\. Fatherhood, and neither would want to.

1\. The past, a day in Signal when two young boys became men.

**Five Songs Mrs. Twist Taught Jack** (255w | 2007-06-26)

5\. _Water Walkin' Jesus_. He especially liked to flourish the "take me away" part because that's exactly what he wanted—Jesus to take him the fuck away from Lightning Flat.

4\. _This Land Is Your Land_. The way his mama sang it, he could almost believe it.

3\. _When You Wish Upon a Star_. And when his daddy deemed him too old be to liking songs like that, she'd just hum it for him, quiet, under her breath. She always had that way about her: she took the slappings down, the hard glares, and she turned them into air and light when daddy wasn't lookin.

2\. _Amazing Grace_. He heard it sung in later years by voices more skilled than hers, louder, more robust, fuller and richer, but he still loved to hear her sing it best; low, a little raspy, yet with a full certainty and confidence flowing like a river true beneath every word.

1\. It wasn't a song that had a name, and no words, either; it was the one that, even once Jack had outgrown the lullabies of his youth, she still hummed under her breath when she hugged him.

When he brought home news of Bobby, she hummed it happily all the night long, filling the house with her good cheer. She gave him a kiss on the cheek before bed and told him he'd best learn the tune now: it was the one she'd sung for him the whole time she carried him, and now it was time to sing it for Bobby, too.

**Five Men That Weren't Ennis**

5\. Juan. Hell, he wasn't even close to blond. Jack wasn't sure who the fuck he was trying to fool—himself or Juan.

4\. Hidalgo. Never figured out if that was just his stage name, or his parents just wanted to give him big boots to fill, but Jack knew him in the true Christian sense of the word, anyhow.

3\. Nero. Lips cherry-sin red and skin Jack couldn't stop touching.

2\. Officer Yarrow. All those years, speeding, he'd learned how to spot 'em. Back behind his truck, quick and dirty, and saved himself eighty-five dollars. He bought Ennis a new winter jacket with it to alleviate the turning-over in his gut.

1\. Randall, but then again, Jack didn't want him to be Ennis.

**Five Positions Jack and Ennis...Well, You Know** (104w | 2007-04-27)

5\. The "oh, crap, this horse won't stay still but I'm so close" one.

4\. The "who's your daddy now?" which mainly involved Jack swinging a rope over his head and Ennis trying to tackle him.

3\. Some crazy variation of missionary where they both sprained muscles and swore at each other, and did it every other chance they had.

2\. Sitting, Jack in Ennis's lap, looking out over the river.

1\. Ennis didn't have a name for this one; it's just what happened when they didn't think. Even after all the trips into the mountains, it remained nameless in his mind, a feeling more than a thought: right.

**Five Times Jack Thought He Might Be in Love With Randall** (133w | 2007-04-27)

5\. The first time he said _don't go_, because Jack could tell he meant it.

4\. They were driving, no destination in mind, and the blue skies stretched bright and long like a promise before them. Randall sang some tuneless old folk song at the top of his lungs, tapping his hand on his knee and grinning fit to split his face. Jack had to grip the wheel hard to keep his eyes on the road.

3\. The day he divorced LaShawn and showed up at Jack's doorstep.

2\. In that old, run-down cabin, he brought out a radio and turned it as high as it would go, singing over the static. He wouldn't let up until Jack danced with him.

1\. Every time he said _don't go_ because Jack always did, and Randall always let him.

**Five Times Blood Was Spilled** (123w | 2007-04-27)

5\. At the attack. Earl gave as good as he got.

4\. Bobby scraped his knee, but Jack was away on business, and he wouldn't go to his mama. He still has a scar, one of many.

3\. Junior slammed her finger in a car door when she was staring at Cassie for too long. Daddy stopped bringing her round not long after.

2\. Jack's first bull ride—he vowed that day never to give it up again without a fight. His daddy kicked him out the next day.

1\. Ennis, on a backroad in Texas, broke his toe by kicking the side of his truck, which also broke down. Junior picked him up a week later; the toe would always be crooked but something else had healed.

**Five Sleepless Nights** (95w | 2007-04-27)

5\. The night Ennis got married. There was no way he could stay in the present.

4\. The night Alma Beers lost her virginity. She hated the thought of spending the rest of her life with Jed, but who else was there?

3\. The night Francine turned nineteen. For the first time, she cried for her father, and didn't stop until sunrise.

2\. After an anonymous phone call that Lureen refused to acknowledge in her mind, thought, or deeds; it festered for the next five years.

1\. The second night; they fell asleep just at dawn, bathed in light.

**Five Times Ennis Came Out** (97w | 2007-04-29)

5\. "Don't think I'm the marryin sort," he admitted when Junior asked if he'd ever try again.

4\. "Best friend a man ever could a had," his tenth beer said to the blurry man sitting next to him on the bar. The blur nodded, and they made a toast to Jack.

3\. "Jack—" He slurred into the phone, irritated at this woman who was making sharp and sleepy inquiries and didn't understand his urgency, "need Jack."

2\. _Weren't you_, his scrawled note to Cassie said, two years too late. _Weren't never you_.

1\. Silently, he handed the shirt to Mrs. Twist.

**Five Times Jack Was Bored** (244w | 2007-05-02)

**.Five**

_Plink._

Plink.

Plink.

"Almost full," Sam said, squinting at the lamb's foot and drawing out another thorn to drop in the bucket.

Jack jerked back into half-consciousness from where he'd been slumping over the equally bored lamb.

He sent up a quick prayer that the whole summer wouldn't be like this and then nodded at Sam to continue.

**.Four**

Two-hundred miles, too many more to go.

He sighed, settling into his seat. Third state he'd gone through looking for Ennis, and hell if he'd get himself all excited again this time. Maybe next time he should just send a goddamn postcard.

**.Three**

"Hair like this don't happen overnight, you know," the hairdresser told him, arching her bleached eyebrows.

"Not my fault you got your license suspended, Jack," Lureen said, turning the page of her magazine with a snap. "We'll get to your show soon enough."

Glaring, he went back outside to wait.

**.Two**

"Don't make no goddamned sense," L.D. went on, flipping through the report. "Thought for sure those buffers on the side would do the trick for the numbers. You believe that sonofabitch Yale? Thinkin' that if he sells low he can drive us out the market..."

Jack nodded obediently, unable to shut out the drone of L.D.'s voice. In his five years working for the man, he'd gained a hell of a lot more respect for Fayette.

**.One**

His fifteenth wedding anniversary. Lureen didn't come home from the office, and he didn't come home from his bottle.

**Five Things Ennis Never Regretted** (89w |2007-05-02 )

5\. Junior and Francine.

4\. Signing up for his stint on Brokeback. No use regretting what he couldn't change and, truth is, even if he had it to do over, he wouldn't—couldn't—have done any different.

3\. The one weekend he snuck down to Texas to watch Jack ride his last bucking bull—didn't tell Jack, and Alma pitched a fit. Lost a lot of pay for it, but it was worth it.

2\. _You bet._

1\. That he lied when he said _this is a one-shot thing we got goin on here_.


End file.
